by Kaitlyn Hoyt
I CAN’T READ HIS THOUGHTS. There is a void. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. “Are you thinking of anything?”
“Yes, I was thinking about something.”
“About what?”
“Well, if you can’t read my thoughts then there is no point in telling you, now is there?” He smiles. “You really can’t read my mind. Interesting.”
“How is that interesting?”
He just shrugs, and refuses to reply. I look at David to see if he can enlighten me, but he shakes his head.
“Maybe his thoughts are too bad for you to hear,” David suggests, smirking.
“I highly doubt that.”
“Why?”
“Well, when we were at the house, I heard what the man that was holding me hostage was thinking. I doubt Colton’s thoughts are worse than his.” I shiver remembering his plans. Gasping, I look at Colton with wide eyes and say, “Maybe you’re my Bella!”
“Your what?” The look of confusion on his face is hilarious. David grabs his stomach, and doubles over laughing. Claire attempts to cover her mouth with her hand to hide her laughter.
“Oh, Ryanne, you’re a hoot. I like you,” David says through his laughter. He turns and hits Colton on the back. “Twilight reference, man.”
“Twilight? Like that vampire movie?”
“I was referring to the book, but the movie works as well.” It’s funny that he doesn’t understand the reference, but David and Claire do. I can’t stop laughing. My stomach starts to ache, and I have to concentrate really hard on calming down. Taking a deep breath, I turn toward Claire. “Does it mean anything that I can’t read his thoughts?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of it happening before. I’ll do a little research.” She turns and leaves the room.
Colton is still sitting with his body angled toward mine. He reaches back and picks up my notebook, continuing to look at it.
“Can I please have it back? I don’t really like people looking at it.” I reach out to grab it, but he moves it behind him. I move closer to him. “Please.”
“Nope.” He leans back a little further, so I follow his movements. My chest brushes against his. I can smell his cologne again, and feel his breath against the side of my face. My heart starts racing against my chest, threatening to make its beat heard. Hearing Colton’s quick intake of breath, I slowly tear my eyes away from the notebook, and meet his gaze. He’s staring down at me with wide eyes—his expression unreadable. What I wouldn’t give to read his mind right now. He swallows audibly, bringing me back to my senses.
“Fine.” I sit back, and look toward David. His eyes are glancing between Colton and me as he smiles and moves his eyebrows up and down suggestively. I shake my head, and blush at his insinuation. Being around two guys is going to be difficult. I can tell that much already.
“Is this a drawing of our house?” Colton pushes the notebook toward me, pointing to a drawing at the bottom of one of the pages. I recognize it as the drawing I drew on Friday.
Confused, I looked at the page. With a gasp, I mumble, “So that’s where I’d seen it before.”
“You’ve seen our house before?” asks David.
“No, I had a dream about it once. I just remembered it now. I was walking in the woods, and I came across this house.”
“You know what, Ryanne? I’m starting to think that these dreams of yours aren’t actually dreams. Maybe they are some sort of vision. Maybe you’re psychic.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Let’s just add that to the list of things that make me even more of a freak.”
“You’re not a freak, Ryanne,” Colton says, disgruntled.
“Really? I got picked on in high school, called a freak almost every day, and I didn’t even have any ‘abilities’ as you guys call them. You saw my locker on the last day of school. Now, I can read minds and may be psychic? On top of that, whenever I get mad, I have to worry about causing a hurricane? You don’t call that freakish?”
“No, I’d call it extraordinary. You were meant for greater things,” says Colton. His eyes tell me that he is being sincere.
“Potato, Patato.”
David clears his throat and says, “But hey on a brighter note, I think your cut has healed. You can’t even tell that, over an hour ago, you were being held against your will with a dagger to your neck.”
I reach up and touch my neck. The skin is smooth, and doesn’t sting as I touch it. “I thought Claire said it would heal overnight.”
“Well, you keep surprising us today. It looks like you heal quicker than most mages.”
“There’s another thing for the list,” I say under my breath. Colton glares at me, but I ignore him.
“So, can you guys give me a tour of the house? I don’t want to repeat what happened this morning.”
David laughs. “Sure, come on.” I get up and adjust my clothes, pushing my jeans down. I notice that Colton hasn’t moved from the couch. He has turned the page back, and is looking at the flames again.
“Are you coming?”
Without looking at me, he replies, “No, you go ahead. I have to go talk to Aunt Claire.”
Nodding, I walk out of the room and follow after David, who is patiently waiting for me at the end of the hallway.
“Follow me, oh tiny one.”
“You’ve got to stop making jokes about my height, André the giant.”
Laughing, he wraps his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer beside him, and says, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“You know Casablanca? That’s my favorite movie!”
“Who doesn’t know Casablanca? It’s a classic,” he says. “Okay, this house was built to confuse intruders. Claire added an enchantment to make it even more confusing. I already told you that though.” We walk up the stairs, and into the hallway with the guest bedrooms. “The guest rooms are on the right side of the hallway. Colton’s room and mine are on the left side, a little away from yours. The trick is you have to know what room you want to go to. There’s a training room, an entertainment room, a couple of guest bedrooms, a library, the kitchen and living room, a music—”
“You have a library?”
“Ah, something sparked your interest. Yes. We have a library. Think about the library. Since you don’t know what it looks like yet, think about a room of books. Lots of books, shelves upon shelves of them. The haze should start to dissipate. You should feel a pull in your gut, telling you which way to go. Do you feel anything?”
I think about the library, and after a couple of seconds, I feel a tingle in my stomach. I feel like I am on a roller coaster, and have just gone down the first giant drop. I scrunch my nose up; it feels weird. “I don’t really like this feeling.”
David laughs at my reaction. “You get used to it. Now, which way is the pull telling you to go?”
Walking down the hallway, I notice that the pull gets stronger the closer I get to the room. I feel like there are a thousand butterflies in my stomach, pushing against my skin, trying to break free. After many twists and turns, I stop in front of two large doors. Golden doorknobs decorate each door. David lets go of me, and walks to the door. Before opening the door, he turns toward me and says, “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.” I automatically think of my favorite Disney movie when I was younger, Beauty and the Beast. Only in this scenario, beauties surround me, and I feel like the beast.
I listen to him, and hear two doors being pushed open. A small gust of air blows strands of hair into my face. I feel hands wrap around each of my wrists, and David slowly pulls me into the room. After taking a couple of steps, he lets go of my hands and walks behind me, placing his arms on my shoulders.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
I open my eyes, and gasp in delight. I take a few more steps further into the room, and look around. The library has two levels. The bottom level looks to hold more modern books. Two
rounded wooden staircases with heavily ornamented banisters align the right and left walls leading up to the second floors. The second level appears to have older books. Directly in front of me is a large fireplace, extending upwards the entire height of the room, and, in front of that, there are two couches and small side tables. To the left of the room, next to the stairs, are two computers. The walls have deep green wallpaper, decorated with golden swirls.
“Oh my. This room is beautiful.”
“Claire is the only one that really comes in here anymore. She loves books.”
“I used to love reading. I haven’t read a lot since my mom passed, but I love just sitting in a library. Something about the smell of old books is comforting to me.” I walk toward the stairs and slowly ascend. David follows behind me. At the top, I walk to the nearest bookshelf, and run my fingers across the bindings of a row of books. Many of them are adorned with a sturdy canvas cover, but some of the larger ones are leather.
I feel tears start to well up in my eyes. I don’t know why. I hadn’t cried in over a year, and now I seem to cry a lot. I wonder if it had anything to do with coming into my gifts. My magic is correlated with my emotions. Dang it, it’s like going through puberty all over again.
Something about this place…I don’t know how to describe it. It is relaxing and quiet, and I instantly feel safe here. I wipe the tears away, and turn toward David. Without saying anything, I walk up to him and wrap my arms around his waist, giving him a hug. His body tenses against mine initially, but after a couple of seconds, he relaxes and hugs me back.
“Well, if I knew this was going to be your reaction, I would have shown it to you earlier.”
“What’s going on here?” I feel David stiffen again as he turns and looks at Colton. He slowly drops his arms, and pushes me back. I don’t understand the sudden change in behavior.
“I was showing Ryanne the library. She apparently has a thing for books.”
I hear them both continue to converse in harsh whispers, but my attention is elsewhere. I grab a step stool from the corner, and place it at the bottom of the third bookshelf. Stepping up, I reach up to the top shelf, and pull down the book.
“Is this what I think it is?” The whispers stop behind me. “Is this a first edition of Pride and Prejudice?”
Colton walks over to me. “Probably. Claire collects books like that.”
With my best British accent imitation, I say, “‘I have no pretension whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.’ That’s one of my favorite lines. This book is worth a lot of money. I can’t believe I’m actually holding a first edition. Oh my goodness, it’s in excellent condition.” I start rambling. I stare at the book in awe. It’s amazing. I’m more excited now than when I found out that I had magical gifts. That’s not a very good example because I wasn’t very excited then, but whatever.
Standing on the stool, Colton and I are about the same height, but he is still slightly taller. He steps behind me and leans forward, reaching for a book on the top shelf. His chest brushes against my back. I bite my lip to keep from making any noise, as his breath hits my neck. I watch his hand as it moves upwards, and grasps onto a dark clothed book.
“This one is one of my favorites,” he says lightly, and hands me the book. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.
“You read? I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
With a shrug, he says, “‘Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of a man could invent.’ But don’t go spreading that around. I wouldn’t want to ruin my reputation.”
“Who would I tell? You two are the only people that actually talk to me.” I turn my attention back to the books; refusing to acknowledge the looks they both give me.
David walks over to me, and puts his hand on the small of my back. “Would you like to see the rest of the house?”
“Maybe some other time. I want to look around here a little more.” Colton hisses something to David, but David just laughs. Removing his hand from my back, he winks at Colton. What is going on between them? Both brothers turn away, and start descending down the staircase, quietly whispering to one another. I put the books back on the shelf, not wanting to damage them, and walk down the other set of stairs, running my hand along the banister as I go. At the bottom, I walk past Colton and David, and head over to the newer section of books. I see many books that I recognize, and some that I don’t.
I grab a book that has a collection of the fairy tales, and head over to the couch to sit down and read.